D'Alessandro: Udonis Haslem has turned battle of the bigs in Heat's favor

Jonathan Daniel/Getty ImagesUdonis Haslem of the Miami Heat fights for rebound position against Taj Gibson of the Chicago Bulls in Game Two of the Eastern Conference Finals during the 2011 NBA Playoffs on May 18.

Raise your right hand and tell the whole truth: If you were foretold that one of these teams in the NBA East finals was going to have big-man issues as this brawling pie fight headed south, you would have immediately responded, “Miami.”

Yet the series has taken a strange, and perhaps irrevocable, turn — at least in terms of which team has a reliable power forward.

All of a sudden, the Heat have height. Just when they feared they were about to get pummeled by Chicago’s superior frontcourt depth, along came Udonis Haslem to help save Game 2 on Wednesday night, when he popped off the bench for a critical 23-minute contribution that included 13 points and five boards.

All of a sudden, the Bulls have the blues. Just when they figured they would take control of the series on the strength of their quality length, Carlos Boozer looks as if he can barely get off the ground, and gets benched for the last 16:21 of Game 2.

We bring this up because maybe — just maybe — this 1-1 series turns into a tale of two power forwards.

Sometimes a single matchup in one game can be the fulcrum on which a series shifts. We’ve seen it countless times.

Occasionally, it happens around guys you don’t suspect. Leon Powe vs. Vlade Radmanovic in Game 2 of the ’08 Finals between the Celtics and Lakers. Goran Dragic vs. George Hill in Game 3 of Suns-Spurs last year. J.J. Barea against Steve Blake and Derek Fisher in Game 2 this year.

We can only say this, for now: Haslem showed the world what Miami had been missing these last six months — a rock-solid trench warrior, a near-automatic pick-and-pop guy and a steady head.

It was his first full rotation since suffering a broken bone in his right foot in November, and Dwayne Wade called him the “player of the game.” LeBron James said, “He definitely got the game ball tonight.” And the coach got a little emotional.

What Boozer represents to Chicago has yet to be determined, but he’s struggled throughout the postseason with a toe problem, other than his strong Game 6 at Atlanta.

He was always aggressive and tough, but now he’s playing small, he can’t finish, and he can’t give Derrick Rose a target on the pick-and-roll.

Neither Rose nor Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau mentioned Boozer in their Game 2 homilies the other night, because it’s old news now.

He is averaging 11.6 points and 9.3 rebounds in this postseason. Needless to say, this is not why the Bulls paid him $80 million last summer — Boozer isn’t even 30, yet there are times when you wonder if his body is falling apart.

He replaced Taj Gibson as the four-spot starter in Chicago. Gibson had an All-Rookie season last year, and he’s had greater per-minute impact than Boozer throughout the playoffs. Which means the Bulls may end up wondering what would have happened had they just let Gibson play 30-plus minutes and use their free-agent resources on Joe Johnson.

Haslem, meanwhile, was a different kind of free agent. He earned a low-side starter’s wage ($7.1 million) but took a pay cut in Miami (five years, $20.3M) just so Pat Riley could stuff the cupboard with superstars. He was the one who sacrificed for the team. Now he’s the guy who actually save it.

Obviously, this can all change on the weekend. At one time, Boozer was a 20-and-10 robot; in his Utah years, he put up gaudy numbers when the games mattered most, only to run into a bad matchup (usually Pau Gasol) in the third round.

Haslem is no fly-by-nighter, however; Miami could not have won the 2006 title without him, even if he was no more than a fourth option in the Shaq-and-Dwyane Show.

And that’s what makes the postseason so exhilarating. As they say in politics, last night’s peacock is tomorrow’s feather duster.

And this is not to pin any Chicago failure on Boozer, either — he’s just the most visible target.

Kyle Korver, allegedly the best 3-point shooter in the sport, went 1-for-7 Wednesday night and managed to lose a matchup to Mike Bibby.

Luol Deng coughed it up three times and had a shot blocked by Bibby in the last eight minutes alone.

Rose was — on a 1-to-10 MVP Scale — a five … or roughly the same number of shots he had thrown back in his face.

And given all that, it was still a tie game as the teams broke huddles with 4:36 left.
That’s how close this series is destined to be.

And that’s why it’s a terrific spectacle, unless you have a horse in this race, which you probably do. In that case, it’s not so much a joyride as it is a hellish switchback.
But speaking for the rest of the world, viva la pie fight.